


Life is but a walking shadow.

by FireSparkling



Category: Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018), Queen (Band)
Genre: Crying, Depression, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-23
Updated: 2019-02-23
Packaged: 2019-11-04 12:08:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17898161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FireSparkling/pseuds/FireSparkling
Summary: A short story about Brian. The title's from Macbeth.





	Life is but a walking shadow.

Brian lay facing the white ceiling on the black couch in his dark living room, unable to sleep.

 

He didn't bother taking off his black shirt and pants he's worn for three days and nights in a row. He musters the energy to pull the thin black blanket over himself for a fleeting sense of warmth he fell back in ‘85, back when he was alive.

 

It’s hard to get up today, and this week, and the past few months. It feels like God laced his blanket with lead, silver, and obsidian. The entire world expected him to get up and play his guitar and write something while being unable to lift the heavy, cold blanket. The worst part is almost no one saw it unless he pointed it out to them and explained in excruciating detail or they had to deal with themselves. He hated it.

 

He knew the hammer would fall eventually but when it finally fell, it smacked him in his chest far harder than he could ever expect. It didn't just knock the wind out of him. It knocked out his heart and ribs. He felt an aching numbness in his chest where they once resided or maybe it's because he hasn't eaten for, god-knows-how-long, easily three days. He wishes the hammer knocked the rest of him out too so he could be dragged up the stairs to see his friend again, just one more time.

 

_God, why couldn't have been me? Why did it happen to my friend?_

 

He barely lifts his thin hand and grabs his black notebook off the coffee table, filled with his thoughts and ideas. He drags it back to him before flipping through it, squinting in the dark because turning the lamp isn’t worth the effort.

 

It feels so foreign to flip through the white pages with his own words scribbled inside, reading them all over and over. There was magic woven into the pages before but it disappeared like his friend.

 

“A hand above the water

An angel reaching for the sky

Is it raining in heaven?

Do you want us to cry?”

 

Those are the only words which stood out to him on the crowded, scrawled page.

 

He tosses the notebook on his legs having no energy to put it back but having no desire to look at it anymore.

 

Tears pricked at his eyes, guilt filling the painful hole in his chest.

 

_Why didn't I do or say something? Why can’t I go back in time and warn him? Why did it happen to my friend, a brother in all but name?_

 

Thoughts and questions rolled in like an avalanche. About his father and his bandmates and his children. Tears rolled out of his eyes as he tried to sleep but only found himself thinking about the past and what’s going to happen now.

 

He wanted to get up and end it all. Wishing for an escape from the numbness and the guilt and the pain. Wishing to see his friend in his arms again. Wishing to have the energy to just get up and throw himself into the river Thames before sinking to the bottom. The lead blanket kept him down, curses.

 

He wanted the hole gone.

 

_Why did Freddie have to die?_

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed this. Don't be afraid to ask for help if you're going through something like this.


End file.
